Adjustable apparatus for feeding and separating coal and like materials



Feb. 16 1926.

' F. H. BLATCH ADJUSTABLE APPARATUS FOR FEEDINFCI AND SEPARATING COAL AND LIKE MATERIAL Filed Nov. 4, 1920 4 Sheets-$heat 1 irrablsr Feb. 16 1926. v F. H. BLATCH ADJUSTABLE APPARATUS FOR FEEDING AND SEPARATINQ COAL AND LIKE MATERIAL Filed Nov. 4, 1920* A 4 Sheets-$heet 2 2a mI-l "WEI/T00 BLHTCH ITTUIMEY Feb. 16 1926.

F. H. BLATCH ADJUSTABLE APPARATUS FOR FEEDING AND SEPARATING 0051! AND LIKE MATERIAL Filed Nov. 4,1920

4 Sheets-$heet :5

IHEIM fiEw/vc/s H 5L ,4 TCH Patented Feb. 16, 1926.

FRANCIS H. BLATCH, O

F HAZLETON, PENNSYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR '10 ANTHRACITE SEPARATOR COMPANY"; OF HAZLETQN, PENNSYLVANIA.

ADJUSTABLE APPARATUS FOR FEEDING AND SEPARATING ooAL AND LIKE MATERIALS. 9

Application filed November 4, 1920. Serial No. 421,644.

To all zmir/m it may concern:

Be it known that I, F

a citizen of Adjustable Separating Coal and like.

the United States,

Apparatus the following is a specification.

This invention re ing coal and the like lates to means for RANGlS I-I. Burma, and resident invented useful Improvements in for Feeding and Materials, of which feed from a storage bin or hopper to any desired point, and is particularly designed for feeding coal (and the slate usually mired types of spiral separators.

Heretofore quan therewith) to well known tities of coal have been dumped directly on the fixed feed chutes leading to the spiral separator, often result ingin a rush of material over the: separator ed the coal to ting threads Or with loads of ma with the result. that it caus push the slate off the separa into the coal thread.

terial having a preponderance of slate or came too s would be carried oif with the slate discharged.

provided cars can discharge their intermittently feeding small q the material also provided means w which the material is fed t rock, the coal would be held back so that it lowly with the result that it to the separator.

or refuse aims to overcome tages of feeding To these ends I have into, which the coal load and means for uantities of And I have hereby the velocity at o the separator can be varied so that the material. will travel at the rate speed.

to give the most efficient separation on a spiralseparator of given pitch.

Further objects and vention will specifications when read advantages of my inbe apparent from the following in connection with the accompanying drawings in which Fig. 1 is a s1 bodiment of the invention;

Fig. 2 is line 22 of Fig. 3 is through the feeding chutes of the structure shown in Fig.1;

r Fig -f ferent insta ance ,wi l the present inwmtion Fig.

a plan of a portion thereof on Fig. 1

de elevation showing one ema central longitudinal section storage 6 and 7 llations constructedbin, shaking table and are views showing difin cc r ing a horizontal section on line 6-4? of Fig. 5.

Fig. 8v is a detail view showing the ridge plates of the separator in an adjusted position.

Referring first to 1 to 3, 10 represents a known form of spiral separator having multiple threads 11, 12 and 13 over which the material to be separated travels. As is well known in this art, pure coal is brighter and harder than the honey coal and slate and, therefore, travels over the surface of the separator with less friction than the latter and travels in an outer path on the spiral runway and is discharged to a suitable receptacle. The slate and honey coal travel on an inner path near the supporting post and are similarly discharged into a suitable receptacle. Adjustable ridge or division plates 1 1- similar to those shown in the Patent No. 1,197,057, granted to Frank Pardee, September 5th, 1919, are provided near the discharge ends of the separator threads to direct the pure and impure coal to their respective discharge chutes.

I provide improved means for adjusting these ridge plates inwardly or outwardly, comprising a hand lever '14? pivoted at 14 to a fixed bracket and connected to the several ridge plates by suitable links 14 so that they may all be moved simultaneously.

The ridge plates 14 are pivoted at le to the surface of the runway and they are each connected by suitable pins 14. which is pivotally secured to the ends of the Links 1 L. As thus arranged it is clear that the several ridge plates can be simultaneously swung on their pivots so to adjust them inwardly or outwardly.

A fixed plate L1 having a plurality of holes therein is provided to enable the operator to lock the ridge plates in the desired position by inserting the pin 1 L through a hole in the lever 1e and into the registering hole in the plate 1 1. When necessary or desirable I may provide an individual hand lever for each ridge plate.

a lever 20 which is adapted to be rocked about a tired shaft. 21 by means of a manwith a bar i though not necessarily, formed ually operated link 22 having a plurality of holes 2 in the end thereof, through any one of which a pin 2-1 may be inserted to lock the link to afixed post 25'. This arrangement permits the operator to change the angle of inclination oi the teed chutes 15, 16 and 17 so as to vary the: velocity at which the material is delivered to the threads of the separator. As best shown in Fig. 2, the upper chute 15 is provided with discharge openings 26 and 27 through which the mate rial is ted respectively to the chutes 1G and i7, whichieed the two lower threads of the spiral separator. The upper thread receives that portion of the material t'ed thereto which passes around the sides of the openings and 2? as indicated by the arrows in Fig. 2. a p

In order to overcome the objectionable practice of discharging a mine car load of coal at one operation to the separator, and then having the separator idle until such time as another car is brought into place and discharged, I- employ a storage bin 30 of such capacity that a substantially continuous supply can be discharged therefrom. I also provide means for intermittently feeding a uniform volume of material to the separators, which means starts the material on its journey at a substantially uniform velocity. This prevents great quantities of coal from flowing to the separator in a mass and thereby preventing the ineffective separation due either to the too fast or too slow speed at which such a mass will travel and partially prevent the effective separation of the material. The storage bin is preferably, with inclined walls ill to guide the material toward the outlet neck 32, the lower end of which is open as at 33 and is provided also with a discharge orifice 8%. The effective discharge area of the orifice 34 can be varied by means of a gate operable by a lever 36 pivoted at 37 to a bracket on the storage bin and adapted to be moved by a control bar 38 and locked in its adjusted position by means of a pin 39 passing through one of the holes formed in the bar and engaglng a suitable opening n a fixed bracket 41, as shown.

For intermittently delivering a substantially uniform qimntity of material to the teed chutes, 15, 16 and 17 from the storage bin 30 at a constant speed, I employ a shaking table 40 having side guide flanges 42%;2. The table being supported by angle bars 13 and 44, which are secured to flexible planks elo and 46' which in turn are boltedv to fixed girders 457' and 48. The table 40 is reciprocated by means of an eccentr c 50, carr ed on a shattjl, through an eccentric strap 52 and a connecting rod 53 which is secured at 54 to the underside of the table. T haft 51 is ,i a led in sa ta lc'bearof this orifice. The lever 36 prevent the material from clogging or choking said discharge orifice.

The above described apparatus for feeding material to a multiple thread separator having three threads, but it isto be under stood that it can net as cttectively be utilized for differenttypes ot separators and the are rangeinent of parts may be varied to suit different conditions and arrangements of installation in different.- mills. For example, in Fig. 4, is conventionally shown a; sepa rator-lO having four separating threads and a corresponding number of adjustable feed chutes 15* the inclinations ofswhich can be varied by means' ot' a link 22 which rocks a lever 2O" which in this case straddles the bin 30 and is pivoted directly thereto at 37. The table 40 being reciprocated the same as above by an eccentric 50.

In Figs; 5 to 7 inclusive, I have illustrated an installation constructed in accordance with the present invention for supplying material to a pair of adjacent separators and-10, each of said separators having double separating threads 11 and 12. With this arrangement the chief difference is that the pivoted feed chutes are formed so as to provide branches 15 and 15 leading respectively to the separators 10 and 10. These chutes 15* are adjusted by means of a lever pivoted at 21 as shown. The storage bin is shaped somewhat ditlerently, it being provided in this instance with an inclined bottom 31 for discharging the material through the orifice 34, a gate being. provided for varying the discharge area for operating this gate is pivoted on the stud 37 secured to the frontwall of the bin 30. The cccentric for reciprocating the table ell) is carried on a shaft 51 which is located between the bin and the separators and is supported in bearings on a superstructiuo" d1 rectly above the separators.

Ihe agitat0r 49 is curved near its end and projects upwardly into the orifice 3st. The operation of each of the structures shown is practically the same and, theretore the following description will suffice for all.

The material to be treated is usually a mixture of coal and slate which has previouslvbeen separated on suitable screens'according to size and dumped into the storage bin .The gate 35 is opened by means of the lever 36 and locked in position by the pin-'39: so as to permit of a constant dis charge of the desired volume of material. The shaking chute carrying the agitator l9 by its jogging movement causes the lumps of material to travel downward on its inclined surface and intermittently discharges it to the uppermost feed chute 15. Part of the material falls through the openings in the feed chute 15 to the lower chutes from which it is delivered to the corresponding thread of the separator to which it is attached. It the operator notices that the material is traveling at such a speed over the separator that an ineificient separation is being effected thereby, he can cut down this speed by lowering the free ends of the feed chutes. This adjustment being effected by manipulating the lever 20 through link which can be locked in dilferent positions by inserting pin 24 in difierent openings 23 in the bar. And in like manner it the volume of material is greater than desired, the area of the discharge orifice can be varied by manipulating the gate 35 through lever 36 and bar 38 which can be locked in position by the pin 39.

Heretofore, spiral separators have been fed from fixed feed chutes without provision for varying the velocity at which it entered the separator threads with the result that frequently slate traveling at an excessive speed would be pushed by the coal into the coal thread, and in other instances where there was a large percentage of slate and rock it would hold the coal back so that it would be carried OH with the slate discharge. Vith my improved apparatus including the adjustable feed chutes and shaking table this disadvantage is overcome and these chutes can be adjusted so that a given separator can efficiently handle the material coming from dilterent coal veins. It being understood that the different veins contain difierent percentages of coal and ref use. The shaking table being driven by an eccentric efi'ects intermittent discharge so that there is a time interval between each feeding impulse, thus the material is fed in desired quantities so that the volume reaching the separator at a given time is such that it will allow the lumps of material to spread apart with less interference from one another and will therefore permit of a very eflicient co-action with the separator.

Though I have described with great particularly the specific embodiments illustrated herein, it is not to be construed that I am limited thereto, as it is clear that changes in arrangement and substitution of equivalents may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the invention as defined in the appended claim.

What I claim is:

In an apparatus of the class described, the combination of a multiple thread spiral separator, separate inclined chutes for feeding the material to each thread of the separator and means for simultaneously adjusting the inclination of the feed chutes so as to vary the velocity at which the material is fed to the separator, certain of said inclined feed chutes having openings formed therein to permit the passage of material from an upper to a lower chute and a shaking table for intermittently feeding material to the uppermost chute.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto signed my name.

' FRANCIS H. BLATCH. 

